Here's a tip: everybody loves to think they're unique and "weird." The most conventional, boring, person you know is going to describe how wacky their party was if you ask.
In reality, there's no such thing as "weird" because there's no such thing as "normal." If you encounter somebody you think embodies "normal", well, you just don't know them well-enough. (I bet a lot of people thought Tom Cruise was normal before he started jumping on Oprah's couch.)
The problem is the debate is phrased wrong. Much like religious people who are anti-evolution are actually anti-natural selection (something entirely different.) In this case, people knee-jerk the debate as "does it exist" vs. "does it not exist."
But that's not the point. The real debate is, "what should we *do* about it?" (And yes, "nothing" is a completely valid answer.)
There are lots of claiming flying around about the effects of global warming, sea-level changes (so far these seem to be bunk), climate change, etc. What we *never* see is a detailed description of exactly why it's bad... it seems to be that warmer weather would increase crop yield, right? Am I crazy? What makes that such a bad thing?
Anyway, we need to get past the "is it real?" stage and move on to the "ok, so now what?" stage.
He's saying that the way things are now, there's no way the momentum will change for tens or hundreds of years. He said absolutely nothing about whether it is man-made or not, you pulled that part out of your ass.
Why are you surprised? Microsoft isn't like some kind of cartoon supervillain... if they have a bug in the add-on, and no fix ready yet, then of course they want people to disable it.
I thought Halo 2 had a good story. I thought the story in Halo and Halo 3 was a let-down.
But it might help that I've read all the novels... it's probably a lot more powerful if you have all the background material they don't really discuss in the games. For instance, without reading the novels, you have no idea why people keep talking about Reach.
And of course, this being Slashdot, it's trendy to hate the mainstream-- since Halo is mainstream, of course you're required by Slashdot law to say it sucks.
In any case, the point of my post (examples aside) was that this generation's games have excellent stories, and anybody saying there's no story in games has absolutely no clue what they're talking about. Do you agree with that?
Press "enter" after one of your job bulletpoints to make a new list items. Type in your role on the project, the name of the project, then the dates during which you worked on it. Provide a short description of the work you did, and how it impacted the success of the project.
JWZ is a software engineer writing about usability. He's not writing about video game characters.
Do you seriously think those two things are equivalent?
As far as I'm concerned, any time spent customizing a character and not playing the game is wasted.
And I think crafting in MMOs is boring, and thus wasted effort on the part of the developer. But guess what? I'm not the *only* person who plays the game. Ditto with the alchemy system in Oblivion, but I'm sure there are thousands of gamers who really appreciated it.
This is going to blow your brain, but Champions Online released their character creator as a demo, and I spent ages doing nothing but customizing characters, and enjoying it.
You'd have to define some sort of "base set" of attributes and props, and game makers wouldn't be able to add their own-- otherwise they'd ruin the portability. For example, say Xbox adds a Halo logo shirt, and you put one on your avatar. Now you buy a PS3, and try to port that avatar into Home... what happens to the shirt? Most likely it'd just turn into a generic one, meaning your avatar isn't portable after-all.
You could *potentially* standardize the format that clothing/props/expressions/facial features/etc takes, so that the PS3 could download the Halo shirt from a server somewhere, but that would be a nightmare to implement with and provide very little benefit. And even if you did pull it off, Sony would still ban the Halo logo because they're Sony.
Yah I noticed that too. They seem to have some furry artists on staff or something, because they put a *lot* of attention into the werewolf/cat-person/antlers/etc options. Or it might have just been a lack of creativity elsewhere, "I can't thing of any other style of legs... well, let's put in the werewolf option I guess."
The part that bugged me is that the only textures available were (IIRC) "Metallic", "Leather", "Cloth." That's it? You have 40,000 werewolf options, and you didn't even bother making a "Fur" texture? (You can make a metallic werewolf, though. Whee!)
That's not going to help until you can fix the damned economy. At this rate, California is going to make Detroit look like a paradise in 25 years.
Ok, exaggeration but... still. When you actually have billboards saying "hey move your business to a neighboring state, we have low taxes and don't fuck with you", you have big problems.
DishNetwork boxes (back when I had that) could be turned off, but if you turned them completely off it took ~5 minutes before it would come back on. Meaning... it would come back on nearly instantly, but take 5 minutes to connect with the satellite, figure out which satellite it's connecting to, download program guide data, etc etc. Stupidly, my box was also a DVR, meaning it had a HD in it-- why it didn't just cache this data in the HD, probably just poor design or too much modularity.
1) He could look in the fridge's manual, which features this tidbit of information. (I'm sure the salesman will be happy to let you look at it before you buy.)
3) He could buy a cheap ($30) power meter, and plug the fridge into it for a couple days.
Surely you're not so retarded that you didn't think of those possibilities. I can only conclude that you're trying to make some political point, and disguising it as a logical point.
Ok; so I buy my TV in California, and get a low-power version. Now I tune it into Fox, and never turn it off, even when I leave my house. Compare that to a person in some other state who buys a higher-power TV, but turns it if unless he's actually watching it at the time.
If you're trying to reduce energy usage, *do something about energy usage*. The type of TV a person has does nothing to indicate how much power they use. Why would anybody even think it does?!
Even going back to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Storytelling! That game's script was better than most blockbuster movies. And I still think Halo 2 is one of the best-written games ever made... even from the very first cutscene with Arbiter, how could you play that and not be affected?
I love Slashdot, it's the only gaming forum on the web full of people who (obviously) don't play games.
In fact, I would go so far as to say the advancement between XBox and XBox360 is barely noticeable.
You must have the shittiest TV in history.
Compare a late Xbox title, like the Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, and compare it to a launch Xbox 360 title, like Oblivion or Kameo. You're seriously telling me you can't tell the difference between those? It's night-and-day.
PS2 and PS3 is largely the same thing.
Ok, now I KNOW you're smoking crack. The PS2 looks like shit even compared to the original Xbox, and the PS3 is (marginally) more powerful than the 360.
If the PSP Go is any indication of what is to come,
It's not. It's a horrible failure in the marketplace, and just one more example of "what the FUCK is Sony THINKING?!" Sony making a dumb-ass product doesn't indicate anything, other than Sony makes a lot of dumb-ass products.
Well, considering this exact same post appears in Every. Goddamned. Gaming. Thread. you really needn't have bothered-- believe me, we've all read it before.
Considering all the Xbox Live copying that's been going on at Sony and Nintendo, you can't blame Microsoft. In fact, Sony's entire PS3 business plan seems to be to copy successful ideas from other companies, then add Blu-Ray... have they done a single innovative thing yet with it?
On topic: In the US, PSN has started to accept competition on its own Store (sounds weird, but apparently Sony likes competition) from Amazon, where you essentially buy a redeem-key.
Ok; but it could AT THE VERY LEAST resume interrupted downloads and let you pause them.
I mean, you can defend the "no background downloading" thing, but what's the defense for not being able to resume interrupted downloads? Let's go back in time to what the Internet was like in 1995, folks!
Also, I had desktop computers a lot less powerful than PSPs, that were capable of background downloading while playing single-player games. What makes you think you need a dedicated CPU core to *download a file*, of all things?
After being subjected to the abomination known as the Sony Connect store, I realized Sony + software = crap.
They simply don't have it in their culture to create usable software.
Even their embedded software is godawful-- my parents' Sony camcorder has two icons to connect to USB. Both icons are identical, with the only difference being that one of them works (i.e. the device shows up as expected on the computer) and one doesn't work (i.e. nothing happens.) Seriously, WTF?!
Slashdot Mirror
Being a Scientologist alone counts as "weird." That was kind of my point...
Here's a tip: everybody loves to think they're unique and "weird." The most conventional, boring, person you know is going to describe how wacky their party was if you ask.
In reality, there's no such thing as "weird" because there's no such thing as "normal." If you encounter somebody you think embodies "normal", well, you just don't know them well-enough. (I bet a lot of people thought Tom Cruise was normal before he started jumping on Oprah's couch.)
The problem is the debate is phrased wrong. Much like religious people who are anti-evolution are actually anti-natural selection (something entirely different.) In this case, people knee-jerk the debate as "does it exist" vs. "does it not exist."
But that's not the point. The real debate is, "what should we *do* about it?" (And yes, "nothing" is a completely valid answer.)
There are lots of claiming flying around about the effects of global warming, sea-level changes (so far these seem to be bunk), climate change, etc. What we *never* see is a detailed description of exactly why it's bad... it seems to be that warmer weather would increase crop yield, right? Am I crazy? What makes that such a bad thing?
Anyway, we need to get past the "is it real?" stage and move on to the "ok, so now what?" stage.
That's not even close to what he's suggesting.
He's saying that the way things are now, there's no way the momentum will change for tens or hundreds of years. He said absolutely nothing about whether it is man-made or not, you pulled that part out of your ass.
Why are you surprised? Microsoft isn't like some kind of cartoon supervillain... if they have a bug in the add-on, and no fix ready yet, then of course they want people to disable it.
I thought Halo 2 had a good story. I thought the story in Halo and Halo 3 was a let-down.
But it might help that I've read all the novels... it's probably a lot more powerful if you have all the background material they don't really discuss in the games. For instance, without reading the novels, you have no idea why people keep talking about Reach.
And of course, this being Slashdot, it's trendy to hate the mainstream-- since Halo is mainstream, of course you're required by Slashdot law to say it sucks.
In any case, the point of my post (examples aside) was that this generation's games have excellent stories, and anybody saying there's no story in games has absolutely no clue what they're talking about. Do you agree with that?
Press "enter" after one of your job bulletpoints to make a new list items. Type in your role on the project, the name of the project, then the dates during which you worked on it. Provide a short description of the work you did, and how it impacted the success of the project.
Done.
JWZ is a software engineer writing about usability. He's not writing about video game characters.
Do you seriously think those two things are equivalent?
As far as I'm concerned, any time spent customizing a character and not playing the game is wasted.
And I think crafting in MMOs is boring, and thus wasted effort on the part of the developer. But guess what? I'm not the *only* person who plays the game. Ditto with the alchemy system in Oblivion, but I'm sure there are thousands of gamers who really appreciated it.
This is going to blow your brain, but Champions Online released their character creator as a demo, and I spent ages doing nothing but customizing characters, and enjoying it.
So in short, you're wrong and also an ass.
You'd have to define some sort of "base set" of attributes and props, and game makers wouldn't be able to add their own-- otherwise they'd ruin the portability. For example, say Xbox adds a Halo logo shirt, and you put one on your avatar. Now you buy a PS3, and try to port that avatar into Home... what happens to the shirt? Most likely it'd just turn into a generic one, meaning your avatar isn't portable after-all.
You could *potentially* standardize the format that clothing/props/expressions/facial features/etc takes, so that the PS3 could download the Halo shirt from a server somewhere, but that would be a nightmare to implement with and provide very little benefit. And even if you did pull it off, Sony would still ban the Halo logo because they're Sony.
Yah I noticed that too. They seem to have some furry artists on staff or something, because they put a *lot* of attention into the werewolf/cat-person/antlers/etc options. Or it might have just been a lack of creativity elsewhere, "I can't thing of any other style of legs... well, let's put in the werewolf option I guess."
The part that bugged me is that the only textures available were (IIRC) "Metallic", "Leather", "Cloth." That's it? You have 40,000 werewolf options, and you didn't even bother making a "Fur" texture? (You can make a metallic werewolf, though. Whee!)
Adolf Hitler was extremely charismatic, but definitely not charming. Unless you find angry yelling charming.
"Charisma" is a very well-established concept, long before Dungeons and Dragons adopted it. I'm not sure why you're having trouble with it.
That's not going to help until you can fix the damned economy. At this rate, California is going to make Detroit look like a paradise in 25 years.
Ok, exaggeration but... still. When you actually have billboards saying "hey move your business to a neighboring state, we have low taxes and don't fuck with you", you have big problems.
DishNetwork boxes (back when I had that) could be turned off, but if you turned them completely off it took ~5 minutes before it would come back on. Meaning... it would come back on nearly instantly, but take 5 minutes to connect with the satellite, figure out which satellite it's connecting to, download program guide data, etc etc. Stupidly, my box was also a DVR, meaning it had a HD in it-- why it didn't just cache this data in the HD, probably just poor design or too much modularity.
Well...
1) He could look in the fridge's manual, which features this tidbit of information. (I'm sure the salesman will be happy to let you look at it before you buy.)
3) He could buy a cheap ($30) power meter, and plug the fridge into it for a couple days.
Surely you're not so retarded that you didn't think of those possibilities. I can only conclude that you're trying to make some political point, and disguising it as a logical point.
Ok; so I buy my TV in California, and get a low-power version. Now I tune it into Fox, and never turn it off, even when I leave my house. Compare that to a person in some other state who buys a higher-power TV, but turns it if unless he's actually watching it at the time.
If you're trying to reduce energy usage, *do something about energy usage*. The type of TV a person has does nothing to indicate how much power they use. Why would anybody even think it does?!
6) Standing in line at the grocery store in a slow moving line
7) Bending down looking for mosquito larvae in a puddle
The line was so long you decided to just eat mosquitos? WTF, man.
Even going back to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Storytelling! That game's script was better than most blockbuster movies. And I still think Halo 2 is one of the best-written games ever made... even from the very first cutscene with Arbiter, how could you play that and not be affected?
I love Slashdot, it's the only gaming forum on the web full of people who (obviously) don't play games.
In fact, I would go so far as to say the advancement between XBox and XBox360 is barely noticeable.
You must have the shittiest TV in history.
Compare a late Xbox title, like the Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, and compare it to a launch Xbox 360 title, like Oblivion or Kameo. You're seriously telling me you can't tell the difference between those? It's night-and-day.
PS2 and PS3 is largely the same thing.
Ok, now I KNOW you're smoking crack. The PS2 looks like shit even compared to the original Xbox, and the PS3 is (marginally) more powerful than the 360.
If the PSP Go is any indication of what is to come,
It's not. It's a horrible failure in the marketplace, and just one more example of "what the FUCK is Sony THINKING?!" Sony making a dumb-ass product doesn't indicate anything, other than Sony makes a lot of dumb-ass products.
Well, considering this exact same post appears in Every. Goddamned. Gaming. Thread. you really needn't have bothered-- believe me, we've all read it before.
Slashdot needs a -1 Tired Cliche moderation.
Considering all the Xbox Live copying that's been going on at Sony and Nintendo, you can't blame Microsoft. In fact, Sony's entire PS3 business plan seems to be to copy successful ideas from other companies, then add Blu-Ray... have they done a single innovative thing yet with it?
Flag on the moon. How did it get there?
+1, Tor Johnson reference.
On topic: In the US, PSN has started to accept competition on its own Store (sounds weird, but apparently Sony likes competition) from Amazon, where you essentially buy a redeem-key.
How is that different from the product keys Amazon has been selling for Xbox Live Arcade games for ages? Like this one for example: http://www.amazon.com/Braid-Online-Game-Code-Xbox-360/dp/B001LRQ8HU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1255635380&sr=8-1
Sounds to me it's just one more area where Sony is following instead of leading.
Ok; but it could AT THE VERY LEAST resume interrupted downloads and let you pause them.
I mean, you can defend the "no background downloading" thing, but what's the defense for not being able to resume interrupted downloads? Let's go back in time to what the Internet was like in 1995, folks!
Also, I had desktop computers a lot less powerful than PSPs, that were capable of background downloading while playing single-player games. What makes you think you need a dedicated CPU core to *download a file*, of all things?
After being subjected to the abomination known as the Sony Connect store, I realized Sony + software = crap.
They simply don't have it in their culture to create usable software.
Even their embedded software is godawful-- my parents' Sony camcorder has two icons to connect to USB. Both icons are identical, with the only difference being that one of them works (i.e. the device shows up as expected on the computer) and one doesn't work (i.e. nothing happens.) Seriously, WTF?!